The present invention refers to a method and an apparatus for preparing Bi-213 to be integrated into a medicament (radioimmunoconjugate) for a human therapeutic use.
The document EP 0 585 986 describes such a method and apparatus. Bi-213 is generated by decay of Ac-225. Due to the short half life the therapeutic use of Bi-213 requires either the administration of Bi-213 to a patient in a nuclear material processing plant or the handling of 10 to 50 mCi of Ac-225 in a hospital. Handling of such amounts of Ac-225 without particular protection would cause the radiation exposure limits (2 xcexcSv/h) and finger dose at contact to be exceeded (contact dose is about 15 rem/h), and is not allowed while a 50 mCi generator represents about 108 Bq of Ac-225, whereas only 5xc2x7103Bq is allowed to be handled without protection.
The present invention therefore proposes a method and an apparatus which allows the preparation of Bi-213 as a medicament in a hospital, thereby respecting all rules for radioprotection and improving the performance of the Bi-213 elution.
The method according to the invention is defined in the appended claim 1, and the apparatus for implementing this method is defined in claim 5.